Facebook’s Emotional Sell

It made the rounds last week. That tear-jerky Don Draper monologue, a powerful end to season one of Mad Men, edited to apply the sentimental qualities of a 1960s slideshow projector to Facebook's new Timeline functionality. It was clever, and a little bit silly. But it was also, apparently, Facebook-approved.

Today Carolyn Everson, Facebook's vp of Global Marketing Solutions, opened her IAB MIXX presentation with the clip to thunderous applause from a packed house at the Crowne Plaza hotel in Times Square.

The exuberance didn't stop there. Everson called Facebook's Timeline one of its two most important product announcements in the company's history. The second? It's Open Graph, also announced at Facebook's f8 developer conference last week.

Timeline "completely changes users' relationships with the product," she said. Meanwhile, the Open Graph will "radically change" the way people discover content.

Everson touted Facebook's position as the only platform online where "people are their real authentic selves," a quality that has meaningful consequences for brands. Everson channeled a bit of Don Draper herself, selling an audience of advertising professionals on Facebook's big picture vision. "Humans haven't changed since the dawn of time," she said. "Technology is now allowing us to live out our offline-environment lives in an online environment." Big thoughts, which Facebook hopes to translate to even bigger sales.